MarketWatch reported on Thursday that Appleis strong financial showing during the previous financial quarter has helped the companies that supply the components for its iPods. As of 10:00 AM EST, when MarketWatch posted its article, PortalPlayer was up US$2.26 to $25.58, but it had dropped to $24.12, still up 3.39% for the day, as of 3:00 PM EST. Sigmatel sat at $19.05, up $1.31 for the day, but by 3:00 PM it was at $18.64, which was still a jump of slightly more than 5%.
Synaptics was at $21.10 at 10:00 AM and at $20.68 by 3:00, still good for a 1.42% increase, while Seagate rose to $19.71, a $0.19 boost, but by 3:00 it had fallen to $19.32, down just over 1% for the day. Apple shipped over 6 million iPods last quarter, a 616% increase over the year-ago quarter.
Meanwhile, Creative, which saw its stock take a hit on June 27 after it lowered its sales forecasts, was at $7.77 a share at 3:00 PM EST, down over 1.6% for the day. The companyis news had weighed heavily on Apple and its iPod component suppliers, but some analysts believed that Creativeis problems showed that it simply had trouble competing against Apple, rather than pointing toward overall weakness in the MP3 player market.